But Bond must have a Bond girl, a different one in every movie. Thus, Emmanuelle Béart is out, and Thandie Newton is in. She is the high-class former girlfriend of Scott, recruited by Cruise's spy agency to seduce him again and learn where he keeps the virus, or vaccine, or something.
Soon, Newton is shagging both Cruise and Scott, while the latter is the subject of surveillance by Cruise and his odd couple sidekicks Ving Rhames and John Polson. Scott also has a sidekick, Richard Roxburgh, who for some reason remains intensely loyal to Scott even after the latter sadistically cuts off one of his fingertips. Well, maybe Scott offers a generous 401K plan.
How others will see it. The first Mission: Impossible movie had a worldwide gross of more than $450M, which explains the sequel. It did even better, earning $565M. Its status as a must-see thriller ("Oh yeah, that's the one with a hot light-skinned black love interest") is confirmed by its 277K user vote total at imdb.com, though its so-so user rating of 6.1 out of 10 shows that many viewers have grown blasé from the formula, even if it is expertly crafted.
It would be a lie to state that Mission: Impossible II was ignored by the festival circuit. It was not; for example, the Razzie Awards (unfairly) nominated Thandie Newton as Worst Supporting Actress, and the movie itself was nominated as Worst Sequel. Also, Tom Cruise was nominated by the Teen Choice Awards for Best Wipeout Scene of the Summer. Congratulations, Tom.
How I felt about it. Two early scenes establish the nature of this movie. The first has Tom Cruise climbing up a tall, steep cliff without any tools, ropes, or nets. At one point, he slips, falls several feet, then stops his fall with his fingers on a ledge.
The second early scene depicts a novel way for Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton to flirt. They try to drive each other off a winding mountain road, damaging their costly vehicles and threatening to send them both plunging to their deaths.
Of course, that scene is followed by another with Cruise and Newton in a hotel bed together. At this point, the movie has already lost all credibility, and it has hardly begun. Characters in such a movie can do as they please without consequences. But if art imitates life, then Cruise's battered body should already be pecked at by crows.
The movie should be retitled as Mission: Bogus II. Additionally, it should be a comedy; the only genre where Cruise can foolishly risk his life for our entertainment. He can do backflips while cliff climbing and land on a narrow ledge with one finger of one hand, etc. Cruise and Newton can check off all the positions in the Kama Sutra including the one in which (according to the Bonzo Dog Band) "You were me, and I was you."
More silliness has people assuming the identity of others by wearing a rubber mask and a centipede on their throat.
After many requisite heroic scenes by Cruise and/or Newton, and many acts of menacing evil by baddie-of-the-sequel Douglas Scott, the film winds to its inevitable conclusion in which Cruise and Scott engage in hand-to-hand contact to the death. With an entirely predictable winner and loser, and a final scene where Cruise and Newton continue their relationship, if only until the credits roll.